UH-1H: Argo Campaign DLC

This review is based on the current status of the campaign as a user that would be looking to purchase this campaign now. This campaign has not been updated to match the new systems that have been introduced to the in the sim over the years since this has been released. There are issues with weather that are immersion breaking and do not match up to the atmosphere that was intended in the original release. It is not limited to the missions because some of the systems on the aircraft like the spotlight do not work in the scenario you are intended to use them. There are some good missions and the voice acting is decent, but it defiantly feels dated compared to newer campaigns. You would still be able to get some entertainment out of this but go in withe the expectation that some of them missions are broken. With the other choices of campaigns available for the UH-1 for nearly the same price, I feel this is a bad buy.

I didn't know what to expect for this campaign considering the mixed reviews. I am a pretty good Huey pilot and it helps that I play in VR which makes flying a lot easier (and more fun once you get it all set up). It isn't Paradise Lost which is the premier Huey campaign and frankly, the most fun campaign I have played. But it is certainly serviceable and worth buying if you want to have more fun with the Huey. As of writing this (12/6/24), I have not encountered any mission breaking bugs and I am on the second to last mission. There are a handful of language barrier hiccups but it is barely worth mentioning, the voice acting is fine (not crazy good or bad), and the difficulty I would imagine is going to be pretty high for most people (which I personally enjoy). The most challenging two missions thus far is one where you are flying at night and it is basically instrument flight for most of it; it is a real challenge. While instrument flying, you have to sling load a tank of liquid oxygen and land it on a carrier. The other difficult mission is one where you are testing the helicopter for maintenance and you must perform an autorotation..... I died. I skipped that mission for now but I am excited to come back and learn that procedure once I have time. If I had one complaint about this campaign it's that it can be a bit of a snooze fest. I actually quite like the idea of prolonged flights because it is much more realistic than constantly taking short trips. But the long flights might get on some people's nerves. Anyway, it's definitely worth the money. It has been pretty fun challenge. EDIT: I just read some negative reviews. To the guy talking about the mission where you park your wipers; you hold the park knob and it moves the wipers into place. Then you let go and the wiper knob pops back to off. Then you wait and the guy will tell you good job. I just did it in that mission and it worked. So....idk what to tell you. The mission where you are searching for the refugees with the search light, it isn't actually using the search light. The convoy triggers once you hit a certain spot and are pretty hard to miss. And if you can't see them, just press shift+F10 a couple of times and bring up labels. But with that being said, I will agree with you that the search light on the Huey needs a MAJOR buff. Like, what the hell is wrong with this thing?

There are some serious problems with the campaign. I want to like it but there are unecessarely difficult missions. For example, one mission you have to fly at night, during an unending thunderstorm, without NVGs. And it is dark as hell. Except for the unceasing blinding lightning. You have to go to an airfield and sling a very heavy load out to sea and land the cargo on a blacked-out US carrier. Then land on a frigate. The landing light and searchlight are broken in this game so all you see when you turn them on is heavy rain, tanking your frame rate and blinding you. The lighting on the airfield when you pick up the load does the same, so even if you turn off your light you are screwed anyways. Sometimes you have to land at a "hospital". A small 2 story house, surrounded by a wall, with trees everywhere. Some hospital. Or find some refugees, at night, in mountainous terrain, with no NVG and get into a fight with terrorists. Still on the fence? In a mission, you are to carry out a maintenance flight. Two minutes in, you have to test the wipers and put the switch back in park position. But the switch won't stay in park. SO the mission will not continue. The campaign is stuck there, because of a wiper switch, I wish I was kidding. SO you can skip the mission through the mission editor. A player should not have to do this because of sloppy design. SO much effort went into this. Ruined by a wiper switch.

I thought this was a really solid campaign it had just a little bit of everything that a Huey can do. It was super helpful for learning the frame and some great techniques. Sorry wise eh... but it was very educational. The time between objective is quite long which is kind of a bummer because I was just wanting to learn how to fly and make it as realistic as possible. It made it quite frustrating when I just wanted to practice.

Several missions are now unplayable with the latest DCS world updates : mission 3 has you slingload a cargo that is almost impossible to unhook without destroying it after 15 minutes + flight. Mission 4 requires the searchlight but it's bugged in the latest DCS version (as of March 2020) and the transit times are way too long. It's too bad because a lot of effort was put in this for scenario and voice acting.

As others have noted, bugs or nerfs in the UH-1H module itself make some missions stupid hard. Coupled with long transit times and no in-mission savepoints, you end up flying the same route to your inevitable crash site so many times you can do it with your eyes closed. (Points for accurately capturing the boredom of military service, though!) Originally, I have given this campaign a thumbs down because some of the missions are so hard. But now, I'm editing the review to give it a thumbs UP, for the same reason. I actually want to get good at (fake) flying helicopters, and these f&**cking missions are making it happen.

Great missions, however you should disable the stupid bot Helicopter escorts/ follows. They have rammed me multiple times mid air and I have to restart because of it which is extremely frustrating andannoying. Expecially after doing the sling load misson and a few feet before dropping the load, this heli comes in and rams me head on. Very stupid.

Okay, so I've made my way through 10 out of the 15 missions. I'm playing through the mission editor since the first mission of the campaign always crashes for me... Multiple people have encountered this issue and from what I can tell, the devs have no intention of fixing it. The only 'fix' the devs have issued is for DCS 2.5 (not available in 1.5) where they've implemented a "skip mission" option through the radio menu... not ideal. Despite my initial disappointment, I've been enjoying the missions. The missions so far have not only been significantly more challenging than the UN campaign, but also more varied. Where the UN campaign had a strong emphasis on combat, the Argo campaign strikes a good balance between combat, troop trainsport, cargo transport, ASW and frigate landings. Also, not only is the mission type varied, but the flying conditions also vary considerably, with very challenging (but fun) night missions and stormy missions. Flying and navigating the Huey with zero visibility, purely on intstruments was an amazing experience. Some of the missions are very challenging (often unrealistically so: flying at night, in a thunderstorm, overweight, slingloading cargo onto an unlit aircraft carrier...), but the missions are rewarding and you will learn a lot. Unfortunately, some of the missions are almost impossible after the EGT updates, and a couple of times I had to get the ground crew to drain my fuel to 20% before I could lift cargo. The voice acting and breifing notes are great, but I would prefer it if communication with ATC wasn't automated. It's a bit silly that my co-pilot can request takeoff before the radio has been switched on.

I'm all for realism. But those transit times, though... WAY too long. I'll recommend it because I can see that a lot of effort went into the story and the voice acting isn't too bad either. The few missions I managed to sit through were really enjoyable (ignoring the super long transit times). If there's a next time, please move the spawn points like at least 30 minutes closer to the action. I don't expect a 15 minute flight - but a mission that lasts well over an hour with 75% of that time dedicated to just flying in a straight line takes quite a bit away from the experience.

Review on mission one: Pros: Well scripted with nice voice acting. Landing on 'Argo' was challenging but it has improved my slow speed skills as did the hover search / asw. Cons: Transit times too long and orbit time at port to long. Overall a solid start to the campaign, a very well done intro mission with some interesting aspects. Very much looking forward to mission 2...update to follow.